UnREAL

The Olympics are nearly over, which means it’s time for all the shows to come back! I haven’t seen any screeners for this week – I got back from Perth on Sunday evening, and I still haven’t figured out how to get back to East Coast hours. I had a great time at Perth Fringeworld, and I might write something about it in the coming week. ANYWAY: there are new or returning shows on all of the major streaming services, and I can’t very well highlight UnREAL without also highlighting Arie’s season of The Bachelor. I’m interested to see what happens in the new season of iZombie, which distinguished itself as an unconventional zombie show but pointed towards the more conventional route by the end of season 3.

I got dates for March the other day, and I was going to do the spreadsheet today but I watched figure skating instead. Anyway, there’s a lot to look forward to.

“It just seems like drama for the sake of drama,” Megan, The Bachelor Australia Season 4 Episode 7.

When Channel Ten teased that one of The Bachelor‘s contestants was going to walk out last week, I assumed it would be either Keira or Alex. They’re the show’s two most reliable sources of drama, and a walkout because of intruders is definitely a source of drama. The last person I was expecting to leave was Megan, who was my pick to win the season after watching the premiere. I was 100 percent wrong in my prediction, and I couldn’t be happier. Megan’s reason for leaving the competition is that the Bachelor mansion isn’t a conducive environment to falling in love. She’s right. Australia’s Bachelor/ette franchise has been successful with people staying together so far with the exception of Blake’s after show choice to dump the winner for the woman who came third, but it’s not going to stay that way.

The 2016 Emmy nominations were announced at 1:30am local time yesterday, and I decided that I’d sleep through it. I’m perfectly happy with that decision. I don’t really have much to say about the Emmy nominations that haven’t already been said, but as usual there are some things that are great, and some not so great. You can find the full list of nominations here (okay, it’s not the full list, it excludes the Creative Arts categories, which I’ll peruse later).

In the first season of UnREAL, we were simultaneously in awe and terrified of just how Rachel and Quinn are good at their jobs. Thanks to Chet, the fourteenth season of Everlasting was off to a rocky start, but even the network’s golden child Coleman Wasserman is aware that his version of the show is a terrible idea. He’s just waiting for Chet to screw up so Rachel and Quinn can save the day. After all, Chet’s friends with Gary. It’s the way things work. Coleman has no experience making reality television, he makes documentaries with important subject matter, like refugees. The networks had a bidding war over him, and now he’s producing Everlasting. But more on Coleman later.

Rachel Goldberg is now the showrunner of Everlasting, and before they’ve even started filming, her colleagues and the audience can tell she’s out of her depth. In season 13, Rachel was the Comeback Kid, and with Quinn she produced a fantastic season of television. Now that Chet’s (briefly) out of the picture, Quinn and Rachel are both promoted, which led to my favourite line in the episode:

“I’m Chet, you’re Quinn. I say crazy shit, you make it happen”

The line that’s more telling however, is Rachel’s insistence that she’s making history. In the first season we saw Rachel struggle with the fact that she’s morally compromised, but at the end of the season she had no trouble ruining Adam’s life after he dumped her. Nine months later, all of Rachel’s scruples appear to be gone, and it’s scaring people.

It’s December, and the thing the internet loves the most at this time of year is the end-of-year Best Of list, so they can disagree with them. This is my first time writing such a list, and it’s difficult. I thought about writing a separate list for Australian shows, but I don’t want to ghettoise them, so they’re in here too. There are things that aren’t on here because I don’t watch them (The Walking Dead, Hannibal) or haven’t had time to catch up (Transparent, The Leftovers, Parks and Recreation), so just know I haven’t forgotten them. I didn’t forget anything, there’s a reason I left it off. Fargo isn’t on here because while I thought it was very good, I didn’t love it – although Kirsten Dunst did give one of the best performances of the year. My favourite show of the year has the top spot, everything else is in alphabetical order. Hopefully the shows I’ve collected here are a good range of the different things I’m enjoying right now. Writing a Top 10 list is hard, and while I’m only super passionate about half to two-thirds of the shows on this list, they’re all here for a reason. I’ve written about all of these shows previously, so there’s just going to be a paragraph about why each one is there, with some links to some things I’ve written. My only warning is that if you watch the “Best episodes” of the show, you will be spoiled for some plot developments.

The upfronts are perhaps the strangest time in the television season, when the networks announce their lineups for the following years. In the United States, this means the release of a full schedule, which is subject to change, especially if a show gets cancelled after a few episodes. In Australia, it’s rare for the networks to release a full schedule, but they provide a description of their shows, the month it will premiere and the occasionnal trailer. Foxtel had their upfronts a couple of weeks ago and pretty much renewed everything it already had, so there were no real surprises. I have found that the SBS Upfronts are usually the most exciting, because they’re committed to telling a diversity of stories.